Towels and Puzzle books
by DaydreamPropensity
Summary: Oneshot. Ben Gates gets double booked into a room with Robert Langdon, tensions flare.


**Something stupid I wrote while putting off history homework :)**

**Thanks to all who have added it to your favourites - You are stars**

**Review? Please :)  
**

Robert Langdon Meets Benjamin Gates

Ben Gates puffed and sighed as he dragged his leather suitcases up the fourth flight of stairs._ Only three more to go, you can do this Ben. Breath. Breath. Breath_. He continued to tell himself to inhale and exhale as he flopped down to take a rest. He had always thought of himself as relatively fit but this was ridiculous. Never before had he been put the the challenge of lugging two very heavy suitcases up seven flights of stairs, and he had been put through a lot. _Can you sue a hotel for a broken elevator?_

He was now beginning to regret bringing his collection of fossils, and wish he had listened to Riley, which was a first.

_ "Why are you taking rocks?" the young man had wondered out loud_

"_They're not rocks Riley they're fossils, and I have to take them to show the students how helpful fossils can be in helping us understand the past, not to mention the fact that they are very interesting"_

"_Right that's stupid...why not just take pictures or something?"_

"_Because it's not the same"_

"_Whatever," Riley walked out of the room mumbling, "you might as well be taking a tenner saxophone, a twelve pound bowling ball and an autographed snorkel"_

Ben didn't really understand the randomness of the last comment but that wasn't unusual. And although he would never admit it, pictures would have been easier.

With great difficulty, he finally reached the seventh floor and found his room – which happened to be at the end of the long corridor. Getting his key card out of his trouser pocket, he opened the door and with his last remaining energy, pulled the suitcase just inside. The force of this caused him to fall backwards onto the floor. _Bugger it._ He stretched out his arms and kicked the door shut with his foot, lying on his back with his eyes closed, letting his back un-ache itself.

He was smiling in his peaceful bliss of nothingness when a strange noise alerted him back to the real world. _That's weird, I thought I just heard something that sounded exactly like someone clearing their throat._ His eyelids flew open to see a tall man standing over him. The man was wearing a towel around his head and a dark blue dressing gown. Ben only just had time to analyse how strange that scene was when the man spoke.

"Excuse me, but I think you're in the wrong room"

Ben looked at the stranger with a puzzled expression, then looked at the number on the door, then the number on his key card, then back at the door and finally back at the stranger. He used his hands to push him up off of the floor.

"Erm, actually...I think you're in the wrong room..." he said cautiously, this guy could be crazy, after all he was walking around someone else's hotel room in a dressing gown with a towel wrapped around his head.

"Look, I'm Robert Langdon, you've probably heard of me" he shook Ben's hand languidly "this is my key card, see, same number as the door. So if you wouldn't mind..." he motioned to the door, which Ben found very rude. _What does he mean I might have heard of him?_

"Well I'm Ben gates and _this_ is _my _key card. It also matches the door. So if _you _don't mind" he mimicked his action.

Langdon seemed to be getting frustrated, he stared at the man who had just barged into his room and lead on his floor. _I mean who does that?_

"Wait a minute..." Langdon began, "I can probably figure out what happened here. Give me a minute" Ben watched bewildered as Robert stared at nothing and muttered to himself.

"You have a card with numbers on it...so do I. Those numbers just happened to be the same and also _both _correspond to the same door, which leads to this room. This room that you're in and so am I ...."

"Yeah we probably just got double booked..." Robert seemed to ponder this idea for a moment, then went to the phone. All the while keeping his eyes focused on Ben. He explained to the operator the predicament he and Ben had found themselves in, then nodded and said "yes" while she explained that it would take about half an hour to sort them out.

They both bounced down on opposite ends of the bed.

"What did you mean I've probably heard of you?" Ben asked

"Well I'm quite a celebrity. But I don't really like talking about it because it always leads to some pale guy using me for something evil and insane"

"That's cool. Why?"

"I'm a symbologist you see...but I'm the best there is so I usually get roped into a treasure hunt of some sort that my knowledge of history is key to" he nodded matter-of-factly.

"Oh my god, me too! Except I'm an historian" Ben exclaimed happily

"Oh really? What was the last treasure hunt you went on?" Ben got the feeling he was being mocked.

"I actually found out that there was a secret map on the back of the declaration of independence. What was the last on _you _went on?" he applied the same sardonic tone to his voice

"Well _I _found the Holy Grail sort of. Underneath Le Louvre"

Ben gave a snort "That's fricking stupid"

"Anymore stupid than there being a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of independence? Please, I don't think so" he showed Ben his palm to emphasise his point

"Yuh-huh! because everyone knows Jesus was American"

"Nuh-uh!"

The two men had stood up off of the bed and were now staring each other down. Ben couldn't remember the last time he had been this angry, he clenched his fist into a ball then struck out so that it collided with Langdon's towel. It unravelled itself before the indignant face of Robert, revealing floppy dripping hair underneath.

"That...was mean" Langdon hurtfully walked to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Three seconds later he shuffled back out to grab some clothes that he had forgotten, then he slammed the door louder. Ben sat down on the double bed attempting to calm himself. _I'm a way better treasure hunter than he will ever be...At least I have a sidekick. Every good treasure hunter needs a sidekick...and a love interest, yeah I bet he doesn't even have a love interest. _

A couple of minutes later Robert emerged from the bathroom wearing khaki trousers, a suede jacket and sandals. Ben gave a slight snicker.

"What?" Langdon snapped

"Nothing nothing..." but he couldn't keep the smirk from creeping on his lips, Langdon noticed and frustratingly put his hands on his hips

"What?" he demanded

"You go treasure hunting dressed like that?"

"It's not about what you wear it's about how good you are. I could out-treasure-hunt you any day" this comment wiped the smirk off of Ben's faced. Challenge was in the air.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Well then let's go treasure hunting, come on who ever gets their first is the ultimate treasure hunter. Ever" Ben declared

"That's stupid we don't know where any is"

"Oh yeah of course...wait, you can't find treasure without solving a few riddles...I challenge you to a riddle-of!"

"Hahaa you don't want to do that" Robert suddenly became very smug "I am awesome at riddles"

"Well I like invented riddles..."

"We'll see"

"Yes we will"

"Yeah, we will" Robert walked across the room briskly to his suitcase, from the inside he pulled a slim silver laptop.

"What're you doing?"

"Getting my laptop so we can riddle battle online. Duh"

"No need, I carry a book of riddles with me wherever I go..." Ben copied Langdon's stride over to his own suitcase, in which he found a pocket-sized puzzle book.

"You carry a riddle book with you? Why?..."

Ben gave Langdon a looked that told him he was an idiot "Uhh so I can do them before I go to bed, why else?"

"Dork" Langdon muttered under his breath. Ben lead the book on the floor and was already reading it when Langdon lead down next to him.

"Okay, I'll read you a riddle then you read me one. Whoever doesn't figure one out first loses and it totally lame" Langdon held the book close to his chest so that Ben couldn't see the answer written upside down on the bottom of the page.

"What won't break if you throw it off the highest building in the world, but will break if you throw it into the ocean?"

Ben stroked his invisible beard and began dictating his internal monologue, "High rhymes with sky ... sky holds rain and rain comes from the ocean....ocean, the ocean lives at the beach where people go when they're hot...hot, sometimes it gets really hot when you're in meeting and you sweat...when you sweat you use a tissue...it's a tissue!" he shouted, Langdon looked at the answer and it was in fact a tissue.

"That's not fair you looked!" he complained, there's no way he could've worked that out.

"I did not, now give me the book it's your turn" Langdon folded his arms crossly while Ben searched for a suitable riddle, "how many of each animal did Moses take on the arc?"

"Ha, well according to the book of geneses, God instructed him to take two of each animal. But I happen to know that God also told him "You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of all the earth" so therefore, he took two of every unclean animal and birds and seven of every clean animal. That's the answer"

"Wrong" Ben said simply, Langdon's face fell then turned into a mixture of disbelief and malignancy. _How dare he try to cheat!_

"How is that wrong?" he blazed

"Moses didn't have an ark...Noah did" a few seconds passed while Langdon came to terms with his mistake.

"That's stupid! That's a trick riddle! It doesn't count" he yelled, standing up and stomping his foot

"A trick riddle?" Ben asked mockingly, "face it you lost, that means I'm the most awesome treasure hunter in the world and you suck"

"I do -" Langdon was interupted by the phone ringing loudly on the side. Ben was closest and answered it with a huge smile plastered over his face.

"Why, thank you" he sang to the operator. Putting the phone down gently, he strolled over to his suitcase and carried them out of the door.

"See you around Mr. Langdon"

"You wait Ben Gates"

Ben waved at the manic symbologist cheerily then made his down to his new room on the first floor.

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